


Princess and the Pauper

by Walor



Series: Housewives [2]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: 1950s AU, F/M, Housewives Au, R!63 Dick Grayson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 19:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19180204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walor/pseuds/Walor
Summary: How Beauty met his clumsy, eccentric, idiotic, but loveable Beast and how she wooed him with her ability to make bad situations worse.





	Princess and the Pauper

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a series between, oliviathecf, missnaya, and I. Featuring the horror of sexist 50s suburbia with some crime thriller action included. You know me.

The _Gotham Gazette_ ran a headline while she was in church, slipping the gold ring onto her now husband’s finger. It read, “ _Heiress Marries a Hood,”_ and they made so much money from the sales they were able to afford a lawyer for the resulting libel case Bruce filed.   
  
_She might as well have fallen off the same wire that took her parents’ life_ , Jack Ryder had said on his early evening late show. _She's traded the luxurious lifestyle afforded to her by her adopted father for a tiny little shack in the middle of the country. It's social suicide._

Which was, of course, such a terrible stretch of imagination. As if Dixie would live anywhere that didn't meet the standards she had grown into after being legally declared a Wayne. As if that mattered really, to a girl that had finally found someone who could keep up with her dramatic eccentricities. Of course not.  
  
The _Gotham Gazette_ and their rivals ate it up. The engagement, Dixie's fiancé, everything. Chewed it down the same way they had when Bruce adopted her a week after he sat in the stands and watched her parents go splat. They invited Bruce, not her or her husband-to-be, to dozens of interviews. The questions they gave were more outlandish than the animated pictures she’d seen in theaters. They asked Bruce if he was being blackmailed by her fiancé if she was “in a family way” and he’s the only one who’d take her, if Tiger is another one of Dixie’s latest tantrums.   
  
Mostly they seemed pleased to put her name on the front page to sell papers. None of them believe Dixie's marrying someone so "poor," so boring, so different out of “love.”

Dixie can't really believe it either.  
  
Young, pretty, orphan refugee turned heir to a fortune that would allow her to buy out Gotham several times over. Gotham had been obsessed with her story the moment her family had fled war-torn Europe with the rest of their circus troupe only to die several weeks later. Bruce had adopted her, this 8-year-old Romani girl, the night before he had to report to Fort Hamilton for his draft. She became the poster child in Gotham — hell, the entire United States, for what they were fighting to liberate.   
  
Spent four years in an empty house with only Bruce’s older butler, Alfred, for company. The papers called her the most blessed girl in the world, trading straw mats and popcorn for silk sheets and caviar. Funny. To her, those years were, still are, some of the worst in her entire life.   
  
As with all things, she gets lucky. Bruce comes back a decorated war hero. Dixie changes from pretty to gorgeous. Hardly a day goes by without the doorbell ringing with a gentleman caller dropping in.

She's had dozens of suitors of all shapes and sizes. Some were startlingly handsome and others over thirty years her senior. The papers had a column the moment she turned 18. Who would Dixie Wayne marry? Victor Vale from the _Gotham Gazette_ assumed it would be Roland Desmond of Blüdhaven. Jack Ryder had run an ad campaign for months after Dixie was spotted entering the same boutique as well-to-do lawyer, Harvey Dent. Lois Lane in Metropolis had even chimed in that Oswald Cobblepot was making arrangements for a wedding a week before her engagement was made public.

All so very unlike, and yet the same, in one unavoidable way. They were in love with her as one is in love with the Hope Diamond. Nothing more than another piece to add to their collection. A decorative piece for their arm to flash at the cameras when they wanted a photograph.

The moment she accepted a ring, whether it was from one of them or the man she eventually chose to marry, she would fade into obscurity. Bruce had given her another chance, a better one, for a life after her parents had died. He had given her the option to do something most women could not, and that was to find someone she actually wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

And she did.

Dixie first meets Tiger King in the Gotham Police Department, the new head detective studying under Jim Gordon, a friend of Bruce. He’s a decorated war veteran like Bruce is, the only difference is he’s 29 to Bruce’s 42. Nine years her senior. His young age, not to mention his race, make it hard for the other detectives to take him seriously. Some are outright hostile. He decides to tackle the most famous cold case in Gotham and solve it within the month to prove his worth. It’s her’s.  
  
He has a permanent scowl on his face that only softens into a light frown when Dixie chokes up remembering her parents falling through the air, like puppets snapped free of their strings. He doesn't put an arm on her shoulder like Gordon or the other detectives do. He says a gruff “Sorry,” and expresses almost immediate discomfort when she hugs and thanks him.   
  
Dixie doesn’t expect him to succeed. 15 years between the worst night of her life and now is a long time. _At least,_ she thought, _the new detective is cute._   
  
Less than a week later, Tiger King shows up at her door with bloodshot eyes, but a pleased smirk on his face. “I’d like to take you down to the station, and ask for your help identifying someone.”   
  
Worked sleepless nights and after hours surrounded by aging files to find the man who did it, withering away in hospice care from advanced stage lung cancer. Tony Zucco doesn't make it to his hearing because he dies less than three days later. Tiger expresses his dissatisfaction not finding him sooner; Dixie’s struck he cared so much at all.

She invites him for coffee. He, in turn, refuses--about ten times citing morality--or something of the like about dating someone from a case. He agrees to the eleventh only because she shows up at his apartment door, having walked all the way from Wayne Manor in the rain so no one would follow the cars, soaked to the bone. She catches a cold that night that quickly develops into a fever. It's rather embarrassing because the next five dates they have together involve Tiger at her bedside scolding her for her “imbecility” while Alfred watches, amused, in the doorway.  
  
“Walking over five miles in the pouring rain,” Tiger muttered, pressing a damp, cool cloth to her forehead. “I’ve seen houseplants with better sense than you.”   
  
She throws up on his lap at least four times during his stay and ruins his sixty dollar fur-trimmed coat. Her hair remains matted to her forehead from sweat, skin a pale-yellow from dehydration, and reeks from being unable to bathe. Even Bruce doesn’t stay in the room for that long and the suitors that do come never step into the room.   
  
Tiger sleeps in a rickety chair beside her bed, stinking of her vomit, whenever he can and wakes whenever Alfred steps inside to take over care duties. Whenever he leaves the room, he kisses her forehead and tells her with that pouty frown of his, “Don’t do anything foolish.”   
  
Dixie loves him. She loves him so hot and so bright she wants nothing more than to be married with every passing second. It's instinctual, and her parents always told her to trust her gut.

But she waits, of course. A month, then two, then three, before she ends up popping the question to Tiger during his birthday dinner, 30 to her soon-to-be 21.

It goes worse than expected. She ends up telling him in the middle of dinner, blurting it out while they're surrounded by dozens of wealthy Gothamites who are known for their shrewd gossip. Tiger, of course, reacts by almost choking to death on a missed bone in his salmon.

They send their night in the hospital together, as Tiger angrily motions to her and talks with a voice barely louder than a whisper.  
  
“I love you,” she told him.   
  
“You’re a fool,” he said, face having never lost its pink flush when she asked him. “You’re a naive fool that doesn’t know what she’s getting into.”His criticisms are valid. He is an immigrant without a family. He came to America, and unlike Dixie, it’s stayed that way. His position in the Gotham Police Department provides him with a decent, but small, salary in comparison to the vast wealth she's enjoyed under Bruce. He comes from a different religion, a dedicated Muslim to her loosely practicing Christian. She adores parties and has vast circles of friends. Tiger would be set with a cat or turtle as his only company.

When it comes down to the fact of the matter, this is what Dixie realizes. Tiger does not think he is good enough for her. That their small time together is indicative of what Tiger thinks she must see as a rebellion from her adopted father. That, should he get his hopes up, she will crush them beneath her three hundred dollar heels without looking back and leave him as broken as his former fiancée did.  
  
It breaks her heart.  
  
Dixie spends the night with Tiger in observation, sleeping in the same bed as him, cradling his hand. Anxious with the understanding that if it came to choosing a life of hardship, having to work her fingers to the bone in order to survive or lose Tiger, she would sell her hair and teeth if it meant staying with him. There is no one else she could stand. No one else that could put up with her.   
  
She breaks free a strand of thread from her dress and ties it around his finger. When he wakes up he huffs a breath and pulled her onto his lap.   
  
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Do not say yes if you think one day you might change your mind. It would,” he paused and swallowed, glancing up at her with soft eyes. “I could not bear it.”   
  
She answered by kissing him breathless.

They married four months after their first date in two different ceremonies. The first one is merely for television, broadcast to the country like royalty as they walk out of the church into the waiting limo where Alfred drives them to Wayne Manor. There they spend the next week with friends and family for a more traditional Islamic wedding on Tiger’s behalf.

It's the greatest week of Dixie's life and when she takes Tiger's hand in her own for the final day as Dixie Grayson-Wayne she gladly sheds the name that made her famous.

She becomes Dixie King and spends the majority of the first weeks of their honeymoon staring at Tiger's face, wondering, for the first time, how did _she_ get so lucky.   
  
Beyond that, of course, is copious amounts of vulgar sex that rack them a number of noise complaints from their neighbors. The hotel is forced to give them a private house on the beach so they don’t have to evict Bruce Wayne’s famous daughter. At least there they are allowed to fuck in the sand under the heat of the sun and wash off in the cool, ocean waves.   
  
“You’re incorrigible,” Tiger growled into her panting mouth. He had her spread out on a towel beneath the shade of a palm tree. Dixie was sore and aching from a night spent with her legs tied in splits. Yet, even still, they were barely ten minutes after the company of hotel staff for breakfast when she pulled him down on top of her.   
  
Her laugh turned into a whine as Tiger fucked her harder.

When they come back from a month-long honeymoon in Bermuda, courtesy of Bruce, tanned and lazy from days spent lounging on the sand, they spend the last half of the year in Kandahar where Tiger grew up. They visit his family's gravesite--just as they did Dixie's parents--and spend the following months simply living together.

It's a little difficult. Domestic life isn't exactly as much of a fairytale as Dixie thought it would be. They argue often during the first week about things Tiger cannot help. Homesickness makes her irritable and Dixie is too much of a social flower to be able to maturely deal with the language barrier between her and Tiger's friends. Dixie loses her anger quickly, falling into his arms with a shuddering cry at how poorly she'd behaved. Tiger introduces her to a second cousin named Rana around Dixie’s age.   
  
“You call yourself a woman yet you do not know how to position a pot,” Rana scolded. Her fat newborn baby positioned on her hip, suckling on his thumb as his mother stirred around the cooking vegetables. “Do not worry. I will fix you.”   
  
Dixie doesn’t learn how to cook, despite Rana’s attempts. She bruises Dixie’s fingers with the slap of her wooden spoon after every mistake until they turn purple. Eventually, Rana gives up on cooking and teaches her Pashto and Dari. When Rana is busy with her many children--and there are _many,_ Dixie realizes with a flush--the older ones take over as professor. Though they laugh at her simple sentences they take her hand and tell her, in that pleased way kids do when learning something new at school, the words for everything.

It brings her immense pleasure when she finally finds the word for beloved. Tiger doesn't leave a spot of her untouched by his mouth that night.  
  
When they finally return to Gotham Bruce has an apartment in the city waiting for them. Tiger, already uncomfortable accepting Bruce's gifts, is especially resistant to one as massive and sprawling as a penthouse in upper Gotham. Dixie had laughed. As if Bruce would ever let his daughter and son-in-law stay in some small complex in Crime Alley.   
  
They fight some more, this time about Tiger’s insecurities to provide for her. Bruce takes care of the rent, he buys them new cars, and sends groceries every week. He gives them an allowance each month on top of Tiger’s salary that he labels “gas money” on checks for three hundred dollars. She knows Tiger appreciates Bruce’s care and consideration, but the ease at which he throws money around offends Tiger, especially when Dixie refuses to ask him to stop.  
  
“He’s just helping us save up enough for a nest egg,” Dixie explained after one, very heated argument. Tiger was standing with his foot halfway out the door, keys in his shaking hand. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”  
  
Tiger only gritted his teeth, opening his mouth, only to close it and push a hand through his ruined hair. “That- What he’s given us over the last three months is more than enough for emergencies. I have not paid a single cent since we married. I appreciate your father’s good will, but enough is enough, Dixie. We are not a charity case for your father to continue to spend money on.”  
  
Dixie will never understand men. They are attractive, attentive, and annoyingly sensitive about their sense of pride. “You know he doesn’t think that. He has too much money to keep for himself, he wants to share it with his family.”  
  
“Well, then he can share it with the poor families of Gotham,” Tiger snapped. “Because I won’t take another _cent._ ”  
  
Tiger spends that night at the bureau. Dixie curls up on the couch in their large living area, surrounded by stuffed cushions, gold leaf plated furniture sets, and paintings from artists whose name she can’t pronounce. All of it Dixie’s, moved out from her bedroom in Wayne Manor, all of them gifts from her adopted father. The only thing inside the house that belongs to Tiger is the collection of scarves tucked carefully away in his nightstand along with the prayer mat, worn from age though no less beautiful, in their home office. It’s then, surrounded by a sea of trivial items only made significant to her by the number on a price tag does she realize her mistake.  
  
It is only then does she remember just what she would give up if only to keep Tiger, happy and loving, in her home. The nights they spent together in Kandahar, sharing a home with a dozen others of Tiger’s extended friends and family, with nothing but a mattress laid across the floor. How little it mattered when Tiger’s breath tickled her into waking every morning.  
  
She’s an idiot, yes, as he so often tells her. It’s easy to see now. Calls Bruce that very hour and tells him, sweet as honey, to stop with the lavish gifts please, it’s making her unhappy. The only way to stop one Bruce Wayne, batting her eyelashes and saying she’s upset. Works every time.   
  
By the time five o’clock rolls around the following evening, Tiger coming home, exhausted and pale-faced, Dixie’s called the local museums and art galleries, all of her paintings donated. Majority of the furniture worth a dime has been sold--with the exception of her master bed, she’s allowed to be greedy there isn’t she? What’s left is a penthouse decidedly minimalist, with only necessary appliances and furniture she bought from some chain department store that stank of mothballs. She’s also sold both of the cars Bruce had bought her--with the exception of her custom Ford Thunderbird--and mailed the money to one charity unaffiliated with Bruce’s constant philanthropy.   
  
Tiger stands in the doorway, still as a statue when Dixie rushes up to greet up. Covers his face in kisses and holds him tightly with mumbled apologies and whimpering sniffles into his neck.   
  
“You ...,” Tiger starts later. She’s since pulled him into the house and given a tour of their new, simple home layout. Sat silently through their dinner, staring at the plate of chicken and asparagus with mash Alfred came over to deliver. Glances up at her once she’s finished, his own plate still full.  
  
“You are the biggest idiot I have ever known in my entire life,” Tiger stares at her, mystified bemusement clear on his face. “I don’t know if I should slap myself to see if this is a dream, or take you across my lap for doing such an extremely stupid thing without discussing it with me.”  
  
Dixie shrinks a little in her seat. “I didn’t think you’d be mad.”  
  
“Honestly, Dixie, _habibti,_ of all the things going through my head, anger is only one of many,” Tiger pushes back from the table and stands up, an imposing shadow of a handsome, dangerous man.   
  
Several things flash before her eyes as he makes his way across the room. Bruce and Alfred weeping over her gravestone which reads “ _Beloved Daughter and Wife, Spanked to Death,”_ never being able to sit down again even when her hair turns white, the horrific apparition of Tiger’s hand cracking down on her skin over and over.   
  
His hand settles on her shoulder and she startles lightly in her chair. “Dixie.”  
  
“Uh,” Dixie watches him kneel down beside her on the floor, looking up at her with dark eyes. “Will saying yes result in the demise of my perfect backside?”  
  
Tiger takes her hand, gentle for the glare resting on his face. “Had it not been for the news I spent the day lamenting over giving you, I would put you across the table right now until I could see the red imprint of my hand on your skin for days.”   
  
Oh, that wasn’t a very good idea. She can see the outline of Tiger’s strong biceps stretching out the fabric of his white dress shirt. Maybe she should run away. Join the circus again and give them the tragic backstory about losing her husband in the bustling streets of New York where she became penniless and destitute.   
  
Swallowing, Dixie bites at her bottom lip. “What news?”  
  
“I’ve been assigned a year long undercover operation. There’s no telling when it will be over or how it will end, only that I was given the notice today and to begin tomorrow given the circumstances and desperation of the governor to get this situation under wraps as fast as possible.”  
  
Tiger squeezes her hand softly. “Dixie, habibti, I bought the house this afternoon. We’re moving to the suburbs.”  
  
He doesn’t protest when she gives his bum a few or more swats in retaliation. Apparently, Tiger’s found a better nightmare for her after all starring white picket fences, green grass yards, and smiling neighbors.  
  
_Absolutely dreadful._


End file.
